Crossing the Blues
Showing posts with label log delivery by bike. Show all posts
Showing posts with label log delivery by bike. Show all posts
I got up quite early as I had a doctor's appointment as my ankle is still hot to the touch, still a bit painful, and I'm worried about turning on it again... I've almost gone over on it twice since breaking it, well, since the pot came off. I do NOT want to damage it again!

But I also had agreed to take 3 sacks of wood to my friend Anita, who's central heating has gone wrong, but has a woodstove. So I loaded the trailer up and cycled round to Monkgate. I settled down to read No Impact Man, as there's usually a wait at the Surgery, but today I was called in two minutes early! The GP, (Brendon, I think!) was a new one (for me) and he was really nice, and he gave me some good advice about exercises and strapping my ankle. He was also interested in my lipoma, as I told him I had an appointment to have it removed. I'd happily see this GP again.

Then I popped round to Anita's but she'd double booked and got an appointment at her bank in town, so instead of chatting over a coffee we walked into town together and chatted. We parted at the bank and I went to the Friends Meeting House to see if I could book a room for the Car Free York meeting. Then onto Alligator to pick up a small load of compostables and then to Country Fresh for quite a lot more. I then had a bite of lunch and a good session down the garden, loading up this material with hedge shreddings into the medium Compostumbler.

When the post arrived after lunch, I was pleased to get the document from the Criminal Records Bureau, an 'Enhanced Disclosure'. This means I'll be called into Woodlands soon, given an induction, and be able to help them with their log problem at the back of the building! Yay!! They get volunteer help, I get to take the unwanted tree trunks they normally put on a bonfire. There's at least a win-win-win there!

The boys came home from school, our youngest has started senior school so they came home together. They'd both had a good day. Thank goodness, we were thinking about them all day.

For tea I had a plate of noodles with a veg mix which included some chunks of tromboncino squash, Jack Edwards Pea Beans and thrown-away tomatoes. Several little boxes had been put in the 'unsalable' bag, as each had one or two squashy ones, and about half a dozen sound ones, and it takes too long to sort these out into good and bad... it's cheaper for the retailer to throw the lot and get on with a job which will have a bigger return, like making the trays of tomatoes look nice so customers buy them. I enjoyed my tea, especially as some of the ingredients were home grown and others rescued from material destined for landfill.

Later I dealt with all of the remaining Mirabelle plums, cutting the plum so the stone came out (it comes out really easily with the ripe ones) and stewing some, drying the rest. Bed at 2am.

A busy and good day. I got up relatively late but got up and about soon, as had some paperwork to get on with... quite a lot, invoices to send, stuff to do with advertising, various stuff.

Whilst on the computer I downloaded a suggested AVG antivirus update, and after that my email wouldn't send, it wouldn't accept my Phone Co-op password and I was totally flummoxed. I rang them up. A couple of hours later, a Phone Co-op chap rang me back and through a little sequence of key strokes he instructed me to do at my end, he took control of my computer... it was most weird seeing the cursor moving around 'by itself', but he only took 2 minutes before he found a box had been ticked or unticked somehow and after that, it all worked. I wonder if it was anything to do with the AVG download? Seems unlikely.

After lunch I spent over an hour moving the remaining logpile from the side of the house and tidying the area, sweeping up lots of leaves from the Wisteria. I bagged up three sacks of dry logs to take to Ann C later this evening when I'm in her part of town because of the Transition meeting.

I popped down to Country Fresh and chatted to Shirley, bought spuds and broccoli and brought back several bags of compost heap filler.

When back, I boiled the potatoes and Gill made a nutloaf, and then when she went out, I finished the nutloaf and did roast potatoes and broccoli for tea, which was delicious.

Then at 7ish, I cycled over to South Bank to deliver logs to Ann and to attend the Transition meeting, which was good. Only 5 of us, but we got a lot done.

Gill told me a little story tonight, and this is an example of what we're up against. She was in the bread shop and overheard the following:
Customer: "Hello, you all right?"
Shop Person: "Yeah, good thanks. You all right?"
Customer: Yeah, been getting Christmas presents. I've just got nine. But I haven't got the big one yet. I was thinking of getting a 30 inch flatscreen telly for Kelly's room. But me Mam said not to as she was only 3 and it would be wasted on her.
Shop Person: (grunts)

Unbelievable, eh?